Category: Stepping Up Pennsylvania

WESA By Katie Meyer The commonwealth is embarking on a long-term plan to reduce the numbers of mentally ill inmates in county prisons. The project will see the Department of Corrections team up with the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national organization it has previously worked with to reduce state prison costs. Richard …

The Intelligencer “This is the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Pennsylvania.” The guy making that crack about jail isn’t a psychiatrist or some sort of credentialed mental health expert. He’s Bruce Herdman, chief of medical operations for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. The point Herdman was making to a reporter for the Philadelphia …

Philly.com By Samantha Melamed Bruce Herdman, chief of medical operations for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, sometimes describes the county jails this way: “This is the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Pennsylvania.” Forty percent of Philadelphia inmates are on psychotropic medications; 17 percent have what’s considered a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, …

The Sentinel By Joshua Vaughn Each year an estimated 2 million people with serious mental illness are admitted into county jails and prisons in the United States, according to Richard Cho, Council of State Governments Justice Center director of behavioral health. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel and Cho announced that Pennsylvania would …

WITF By Rich Copeland Nearly two million people with serious mental illnesses are incarcerated in America every year. About a quarter of Pennsylvania’s prisoners suffer from mental illness. The chief of medical operations for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons describes the state’s county jail system as “the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Pennsylvania.” …